PBs and Club Records for Lakelanders at Irish Short Course Finals in Dublin
24 Dec 2019
As Swim Ireland look forward to Olympic year 2020, their final major event of 2019 is the Irish Short Course Swimming Championships. Held over 4 days at the NAC in Dublin, the event saw 35 Irish records broken and confirms the resurgence of Irish Swimming.
Enniskillen Lakelanders represented Fermanagh sending 6 local athletes to participate in this prestigious national event and as per expectations they didn't disappoint, returning with many personal bests swims and club records but more importantly high hopes for the rest of the season ahead building to the Irish Long Course final in July 2020.
14 yr old Ellie McCartney competing against athletes up to 7 years her senior, swam in 7 events over the four long days with heats in the morning and finals in late afternoon, qualifying for 3 ‘A’ Finals and 3 ‘B’ Finals. In the 50m Breaststroke she smashed her PB and qualified for the ’A’ Final finishing 6th. A B-final qualification followed in the 100m Breaststroke where the youngster took 1st position with her best swim of the weekend setting a new club record time of 1:11.36 - 6th fastest Irish time at the meet.
The 200m Breaststroke saw Ellie make another final where she finished 5th, then moving onto the 100m Individual Medley (IM) where she recorded a super PB to make the ‘A’ final finishing 9th with a time of 1:06.24. Ellie's then had a fabulous race in the 200m IM where the ‘A’ final saw her finish 4th, just 1.25 seconds from an Irish Bronze Medal.
After tough few days Ellie lined out for the 400m IM heat where after making the B final she recorded a 5s PB, to take first and 4th overall among all female swimmers at the event. Ellie finished the event with the 50m Freestyle recording a fantastic ¾ second PB.
16 yr old Ben Lynch competed in 3 events at the finals, the 400m, 200m and 1500m Freestyle, bagging a 2s PB in the 200m Freestyle to finish in two minutes. In the 1500m Freestyle, Ben found his form with a huge 27s PB to finish in 7th in Ireland.
Lewis McCartney (17) competed in the 200m Breaststroke and 200m Backcrawl over two days. A very positive swim in the back crawl saw the 17 year old match his previous best time. This was followed with another good swim in the breaststroke to finish both events in the top 30 in Ireland.
After a steady start on day one of the championships, Kealan Mc Shea (17) maintained his PB in the 200m IM, returning on day 2 to swim the 400m IM where Kealan found his groove producing an excellent swim with a notable PB of 9.28secs which moved him up the Irish ranking to 14th place.
Dara Ronan (16) began his National programme on day 1 with an excellent PB in the 200m Butterfly heat, which qualified him for the Final and a finish time of 2.18.61. On Friday Dara lined out in the 400m IM and improved his time by a whopping 3.05 seconds. Another time improvement followed in the 50m Butterfly which Dara completed in 27.90. On to Saturday and the 100m Butterfly, his signature event, and again another PB in a time of 1.01.25. On Sunday morning Dara finished his programme with a time of 2.44.85 in the 200m Breaststroke. A very satisfying National event for Dara.
Cora Rooney (14) was another young Lakelander facing off in 6 races against much older swimmers. She posted a strong swim in the first event the 100m Backstroke, before bagging a PB in the 50m Butterfly. The 100m Butterfly followed with a further PB and the personal bests kept coming with the 200m Backstroke where her slashed over 2 seconds of her previous time. In the 200m Freestyle, Cora maintained her form for another PB whilst the 50m Butterfly saw her make a final improving her ranking from 20 to 13th in Ireland.
Head Coach from the Lakelanders, Aaron Rickhuss paid tribute to the swimmers saying, 'To produce this many PB’s was going to be challenging having exceeded all expectations at the Ulster Short Course event just a few weeks ago but to then step up again at a senior Irish National Championships was a great success and a great finish to the first training cycle of the season'. Aaron also thanked Coach Sinead Donagher for her 'tremendous help and for bringing so much more value to the teams overall performances' throughout the event.
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